Power BI Performance …Tips and Techniques WWW.PRAGMATICWORKS.COM Rachael Martino Principal Consultant
[email protected] @RMartinoBoston About Me • SQL Server and Oracle developer and IT Manager since SQL Server 2000 • Focused on BI and building a data culture of excellence • Boston area resident • Ravelry fan and avid knitter 3 WWW.PRAGMATICWORKS.COM Agenda Impact of poor performance Performance Tips and Techniques Demonstration 4 WWW.PRAGMATICWORKS.COM Power BI is fast Or, why worry about performance? WWW.PRAGMATICWORKS.COM Power BI Tools 6 WWW.PRAGMATICWORKS.COM Architecture • xVelocity in-memory analytics engine • Columnar storage • Compression • In-memory cache • “Microsoft’s family of in-memory and memory- optimized data management technologies” • https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh922900(v=sql.110).aspx 7 WWW.PRAGMATICWORKS.COM Power BI Power BI leverages PowerPivot and PowerView (and Power Query) In-memory, columnar database and formula engine are fast “Now is 3 seconds” http://www.powerpivotpro.com/2012/03/analysis-in-the- three-seconds-of-now/ 8 WWW.PRAGMATICWORKS.COM Performance impacts Slow Processing on data loads Long waits during Design, especially: • Calculated column • Relationships Visualization: • Slow slicers 9 WWW.PRAGMATICWORKS.COM File size and memory indicators Large file size of pbix file: • Not necessarily indicator of bad performance • Sudden changes Memory usage • Direct impact on Screenshot of my local drive, showing improvements in file size as I performance resolved data issues. 10 WWW.PRAGMATICWORKS.COM